THE AMERICAN FOXHOUND 33 



weather conditions a hunt was arranged for the following morn- 

 ing after Mr. Garrett's arrival. The hunters retired, that night, 

 feeling that the elements were against them, and would be when 

 they arose, and their fears were realized, for the next morning 

 the ground was frozen and a stiff wind blew hard from the east. 

 The best of dogs could make but a poor showing under such 

 circumstances. 



But within an hour after Mr. Crawford and friends left the 

 house a large red fox was up and going. He slipped out of his 

 bed twenty-two minutes before the dogs discovered that he was 

 up, and started for a big circle in that immediate neighborhood, 

 trying as it were to see what sort of dogs had routed him on 

 such a day. But it was not many minutes before he found that 

 Plummer's old brindle stock followed in his wake, and he 

 seemed to realize that he had hard work ahead of him. The 

 brindle dogs meant business, and it took fearful weather to stop 

 them. Red reynard shook the dirt of that community from his 

 feet and turned his nose to the west, with the rushing wind, and 

 toward the Great Fields. The dogs followed in fine order, pack- 

 ing and driving as they went, and the hunters were left far 

 behind, and lost. Hour after hour passed and no welcome sound 

 was heard until about four o'clock, in the afternoon, when some 

 traveler told Mr. Crawford that the hounds were running hard, 

 on Morgan's Run, nearly ten miles away. The cunning old fox 

 had made a long, straight run, and was flying for his very life. 

 The weather conditions had improved, and the dogs were going 

 like a pack of relentless, merciless wolves, fast and furious, 

 circling round and round, over hills and up and down valleys, 

 crying loud for the blood of the tired fox. But, as the hunters 

 rode up, the dogs made a sudden, and mysterious loss; they had 

 evidently been close on the fox but he had dodged them. The 

 older hounds hurried to the riglit and left, trying to make off 

 tlie track, but in vain. The quarry had disappeared. Mr. 

 Crawford went into the woods where the loss was made and 

 gave a yell to encourage the faithful dogs; the fox, who had 

 squatted under a fallen tree top, rushed out and ran to a near-by 

 den, where he barely saved his brush by an inch or two. The 

 rascal had been pushed so close that he had to resort to a dodge, 

 and slip out of sight beneath the brush ; no doubt the ruse saved 

 him. Mr. Garrett saw the hounds drive him to earth, and it 

 was quite a feat considering the day. The Crawford pack had 



